There used to be an acceptable Scrabble app. No more.
There is an iOS app called Word Master, it’s a quite decent replacement.
Yes, but no playing against online opponents.
Apps Getting Worse
521–530 of 635 posts
Re: Apps Getting Worse
#522Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spotify on Android degraded in the same way. It's a garbage of an app nowadays. I mean, after many years of not using their service, I recently had to spend a good half hour in front of their app, trying to figure out how to a) list all available songs of a given artist, and b) play one of them. And I couldn't do it. This task is pretty much impossible with their current design. All because, instead of treating their…
I was very sorry to notice Spotify getting worse and worse. It seems that now the app won’t display anything without an internet connection, or certain items that were downloaded don’t appear in the list. What’s the point of downloading songs for offline use if you can’t even navigate to them? The desktop app is also getting worse. After a certain period of time clicking play simply has no effect, so it needs to be r…
> What’s the point of downloading songs for offline use if you can’t even navigate to them?
I've never understood that either. I have downloaded quite a few albums for offline listening throughout the years but now I have no way of removing them because there's no listing. From time to time I still stumble upon an album marked as downloaded so I get that one chance to remove it.
Re: Apps Getting Worse
#523Earlier quoted context omitted.
OSS has the best designs, at least on the desktop. And it's becoming quite competitive in mobile and touch interfaces, too.
Which apps are you referring to? I couldn't name a single open source desktop apps which has good UX or design. It's natural, since these are built by developers, not designers, and they primarily care about functionality and don't have to entice users with good looks and UX. I do know some Android apps that are pretty good, eg RedReader for Reddit.
Functionality is part of UX.
Also, “good” is a very high (and ambiguous) bar. Can you name any commercial apps you believe to be good?
Re: Apps Getting Worse
#524Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having worked in the mobile space for the last decade, it is my experience that these UI/X changes usually are a side effect of new management (after a purge) or from way on high (the c-suite). Neither one of these groups know much about UI/X but hold strong personal opinions which they automatically believe must hold true for all users. I am currently in a tug of war over such UI/X change for a feature in a banking…
My pet theory is that Spotify doesn't want you to choose your own music but steer you towards specific songs instead. Either to increase your level or length of engagement with the service, or because some songs earn them more cash than others.
I am 100% certain that they employ plenty of dark patterns in hopes of steering customer behaviour for Spotify's maximum financial benefit.
Re: Apps Getting Worse
#525Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having worked in the mobile space for the last decade, it is my experience that these UI/X changes usually are a side effect of new management (after a purge) or from way on high (the c-suite). Neither one of these groups know much about UI/X but hold strong personal opinions which they automatically believe must hold true for all users. I am currently in a tug of war over such UI/X change for a feature in a banking…
My pet theory is that Spotify doesn't want you to choose your own music but steer you towards specific songs instead. Either to increase your level or length of engagement with the service, or because some songs earn them more cash than others.
Ah, the Netflix model
Re: Apps Getting Worse
#526Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Banks and finance are like the number one employer of software developers outside of pure tech companies. Right now, with all the churn that only serves to update various financial numbers in databases and is generally useless for the society at large. As an end user, I view a bank as a box to keep my money so I don't have to deal with cash. That's really it. It already works for me as it is right now. A rather pop…
> Where did we make the wrong turn? We force companies to grow, I guess. All of the bullcrap the banks are doing mostly serves one purpose: get you to buy more of their products at terms that are bad for you. All the complaints I have against the UX of the banking websites and apps I use can be attributed to this: they do a shitty job on purpose, because the site/app is primarily a vector to upsell you loans, credit…
Line. Must. Go. Up.
Re: Apps Getting Worse
#527I use Philips hue, they recently upgraded their Android app and it's much crappier of a user experience. The lights are far harder to control with more clicks, and all the graphical changes are a sidestep not an upgrade. Very sad update.
I've stopped buying stuff like that because I know the experience is going to be bad. I bought a bike computer recently and ruled out anything that connects to a phone.
Re: Apps Getting Worse
#528Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm an Android developer who despises Kotlin and all the other trendy stuff. I often get laughed at for my views. However, my apps are ridiculously slim and fast, so there's that. Oh and I don't have a job. It really feels to me as if developers these days care much more about the development process itself, and how their code looks, than about the end product of their work that the users see. Same for designers — th…
I would wholeheartedly agree with that. Developers don't talk about enabling people or making lives better anymore, they don't talk about helping people work more efficiently or use their computer more effectively. Developers treat their users like cattle now. They addict them and herd them and farm their eyeballs for ad-revenue. They don't program to make the world a better place, they program because it's a fun way…
To be fair, the user profile also changed a lot over the years. What used to be a 'programmer for power user' space, now it's all about minimalism and pretty, dysfunctional interfaces. I can see why one would become jaded and separate themselves from users.
Also another problem that doesn't seem to be talked about a lot is that way too often, the stake holders and the developers have nothing in common with the end user.
Re: Apps Getting Worse
#529The worst offender recently in my opinion is Spotify on desktop. It used to be that when you clicked on an artists page you would see all the music tracks listed. Now it's all buried deep in and you have to search through the individual albums. Even the list of albums itself is not shown on the main artist page, you have to click "See Discography" first. The "Home" page is even worse. Where is my discover weekly play…
I mean, if they didn't make it worse then the product managers and 'product' teams wouldn't have anything to do, would they?
Re: Apps Getting Worse
#530Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. There is no better alternative music service, but just yesterday I reinstalled Antennapod for podcasts. Spotify did a great job getting me hooked on some podcast shows, but the UI changed (need more taps and travel from the lowest to the highest button on my phone screen every time I want to use it) and features broke (e.g. it needs internet to list downloaded podcasts such that I can press play on one of them)…
Glad to hear you switched away from listening to podcasts on Spotify. Their attempt to buy up a huge number of podcasts in the last couple of years, which resulted in exclusification of some of those podcasts, is an awful development in the previously free and open podcasting community. I love podcasts and I'd prefer to be able to keep listening to all of my favorite podcasts on whatever app I want.
Yes, that is one of the reasons I moved away.
But also before moving away, I was subscribed to one of the ones they made exclusive, Gimlet Media's something-science I think it was called. Enjoyable and fairly informative much of the time, but if they are going to create a gated community I'm just not going to be part of making that a success, so I immediately stopped listening & recommending it and unsubscribed.